00:00Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is taking a tune on the opposition leader
00:05who said the replacement of Columbus's three ships with the seal pan on the
00:09coat of arms may give way to divisiveness.
00:13The big issue is the ships that Columbus will lose on our emblem.
00:17That is the important issue.
00:20And of course accusatory, accusing the PNM of using our emblem for political gimmickry.
00:29He explains to his audience in Lahoketa why another instrument cannot be,
00:35as some suggest, a national instrument.
00:38Indigenous, if you go into the Oxford dictionary or any good dictionary,
00:43you will see it comes from the Latin word indigenous.
00:47And it means originating or occurring naturally in a country or a region.
00:57The seal pan is qualified by that description.
01:01It originated here.
01:04The tabla is not an originating instrument here. It came from India.
01:09Dr. Rowley says he is aware of the divisive conversations taking place online.
01:14Go on Facebook. Endless race talk. Endless race talk.
01:20Go in the papers. You will see them sneaking in there trying to send that race talk too.
01:25That seal pan is African and other less descriptive words.
01:29But the PM stands by his position that the seal pan is as national, interracial and intercultural as any other emblem.
01:39Guinness Cavaliers, led by Bobby Muhammad, is the youngest conventional band panorama winner.
01:46Won in 1965 and 1967.
01:51So the youngest person who ever led a band panorama victory was an East Indian.
01:56So we're coming to tell me now that if you name the pan as our national instrument,
02:02it will be divisive because the Indian population will feel as though they're left out.
02:07There is no other true symbol of unity, the PM says,
02:11noting that Jit Samaru and the Samaru family were the resident band at state-owned Hilton Trinidad for 25 years.
02:20Jit Samaru leading renegades won the only hat trick of panorama.
02:27They won nine panorama titles.
02:30And you want to come and tell me that if we accept seal pan as the national instrument,
02:36that excludes the Indian population?
02:39Anybody saying that, either wicked or they're ignorant, they don't know the history of this country.
02:45He even lists the living icons.
02:48I have not even mentioned yet Exodus, led by Ainsworth Muhammad,
02:56taking Exodus to city after city in Japan, year after year.
03:01Dr. Rowley urges the population to stop listening to misleading voices.
03:06If you don't want to support the PNM, say you don't want to support the PNM.
03:10You're right, but don't try to rewrite this country's history.
03:14And don't listen to anybody in the university who have done no research,
03:17and sitting down there talking foolishness.
03:20It is time to come together, he says, and despite hard times,
03:24to embrace and celebrate the good that exists in TNT today.
03:30Seal pan is of this nation. Seal pan is ours, and we must claim it.
03:37Ravishi Tiwari, Rupnirain, TV6 News.
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